Karl Josef Silberbauer
Karl Josef Silberbauer (born June 21, 1911 in Vienna ; † September 2, 1972 ibid) was an Austrian SS Oberscharführer in the German Security Service (SD) and the police officer who arrested Anne Frank and her family on August 4, 1944 in Amsterdam .
biography
Army and police service
Karl Josef Silberbauer served in the Austrian army before joining the police force in 1935. Four years later, shortly after Austria was annexed to the German Reich, he joined the Gestapo . In 1943, the year he joined the SS , he was transferred to The Hague in the Netherlands . There he worked for the German security police in Amsterdam .
Arrest of Anne Frank
On August 4, 1944, Silberbauer received the order to investigate the information that some Jews were being hidden in the rear building of the Dutch branch of the German company Opekta , Prinsengracht 263. He took some officials with him and first interviewed Victor Kugler . Even Miep Gies was questioned, but then left behind when Kugler, Johannes Kleiman , Anne Frank, her parents Otto Frank and Edith Frank and her sister Margot Frank , Hermann van Pels with his wife and his son and Fritz Pfeffer arrested and in the SD prison in the Euterpestraat. From there, the detainees were to transit camp Westerbork and then to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen deported . Only Anne's father Otto Frank, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman survived.
post war period
Silberbauer returned to Vienna in April 1945. Because of his membership in the SS and other National Socialist organizations, he was suspended from service in 1946. In 1952 he was tried in court for his National Socialist involvement, but acquitted. From 1954 he was able to work again for the Vienna police.
In 1958, Simon Wiesenthal began looking for the man who arrested Anne Frank in order to prove the existence of Anne Frank to Holocaust deniers . In 1948 two SD officers questioned were able to remember the word "silver" from Silberbauer's name in an initial investigation. Wiesenthal asked Otto Frank for his help, but he refused because he was of the opinion that it was not her arrestor, who acted on orders and, according to Otto Frank, had behaved "correctly" during the arrest, but rather her traitors should be sought. Wiesenthal went on looking anyway and, while on a stay in Amsterdam, received a Gestapo phone book from an acquaintance, which was divided into departments. On his return flight to Vienna, he found several silver builders in it, one of whom was employed in a department in Amsterdam : Karl Josef Silberbauer. Wiesenthal was able to track him down in 1963 in his hometown Vienna at Karmarschgasse 50. Silberbauer confirmed Anne Frank's arrest. A case against him was dropped in 1964 because he had acted on orders. Silberbauer died in 1972 and was buried in the Mauer cemetery in Vienna on September 7, 1972.
Work for the Federal Intelligence Service
After 1945, Silberbauer worked for the German Federal Intelligence Service and for its predecessor, the Gehlen Organization . The Hamburg journalist Peter-Ferdinand Koch found corresponding evidence in US archives.
literature
- Peter-Ferdinand Koch: Unmasked. Double agents: names, facts, evidence. Ecowin, Salzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7110-0008-8 .
Web links
- Karl Josef Silberbauer in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
- Simon Wiesenthal archive on Karl Silberbauer
- Gravestone on www.findagrave.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Newspaper clipping from an Austrian newspaper from November 21st, made available by the Simon Wiesenthal Archive here , viewed March 8th 2017.
- ↑ He arrested Anne Frank: Silberbauer later with the BND. n-tv article from April 9, 2011.
- ^ Scandal book: Anne Frank's tormentor worked for the BND. In: Focus. April 9, 2011.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Silberbauer, Karl Josef |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian SS-Oberscharführer, responsible for the arrest of Anne Frank |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 21, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | 2nd September 1972 |
| Place of death | Vienna |